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It's February 1930, just months after Black Tuesday. In light of their financial woes, a small-town mortician and his arrogant wife start murdering the rich to keep their beloved funeral home afloat.
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Great premise! I think you can consolidate this into one line to make it really punch. For instance, saying that they need to keep their funeral home afloat implies that they have financial woes so that part seems redundant. I would go with “In February 1930, just months after Black Monday, a small town mortician…”
“To save their beloved funeral home during the 1930?s depression, a small-town mortician and his arrogant wife start murdering rich people.”
Still doesn’t contain all the ingredients of a good logline, but I think it’s a decent starting point for your rewrite.
I really like the idea. It has a unique feel to it. It’s something worth writing. As for the logline, it could use some work. There’s no need for the date; you could say Depression and we would understand your time period. I’m not sure of the protagonist and antagonist. Excellent concept, poor logline.
“To drum up business for his failing business, a Mortician begins creating customers the hard way: By Murder”
Questioning how the 1929 crash comes into the story. It’s an interesting time in history, and centered on Wall Street.
The 1930s depression was more… nation-wide, and would have a different feel to it.
(UNLESS of course some of the motive behind the killings was tied to those who caused the crash in the first place). So there’s one of two possibilities for me:
“In the background of the 1930s depression, to avoid starvation, an undertaker in a small rural town resorts to killing the rich in order to live”
Or
“Forced into famine by the 1929 stock market crash, a small-underaker seeks revenge/justice on those who may have otherwise gotten away”.
I have a problem with “the rich”. If it is in a relatively small town, rural setting I picture a very desolate situation where the Depression has leveled everyone into the category of “not rich any more”. I think your morticians would be more likely to find relatively rich folks in an urban area. This, however, entails a different Gothic than the one you are contemplating. Nonetheless, I believe these desperately warped folks need to move the entire “undertaking” to Hell’s Kitchen.
Ha! This is warped!…. How about they run a gas station/mortuary in some God-forsaken stretch of Okie Rte 66. The Fords get gas and go. The Deusenbergs pull in for gas, and don’t pull out. The cemetery on the hill fills slowly on the hill behind the pump.
In depression-riddled America, a mortician employs a new business model that includes a free murder per pine box.